Underdog Stories / Football history

History of FC Barcelona Femení: How the Team Began

The history of FC Barcelona Femení runs from white shirts at Camp Nou in 1970 to 91,648 fans in 2022 and four European titles. Here's how it happened.

By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · August 31, 2026

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On Christmas Day 1970, the women's team walked into the Camp Nou changing room and found a plain white shirt with no crest. Lolita Ortiz remembers saying they wouldn't go out unless the club gave them, at the very least, some Barça-red socks. Then about 60,000 spectators watched them play.

The history of FC Barcelona Femení begins that November. An amateur footballer and Barça fan, Immaculada Cabecerán, approached president Agustí Montal with the idea of a women's team. The club made the team an official section on 26 June 2002. The episode dates full professionalism to 2015. Between those dates there was a lot of waiting.

This is the story as told on Why We Love This Club, in the episode "FC Barcelona Femení — The Team That Outgrew Permission," with host Chris Horwedel. I've checked the details against the club's own records.

Who started FC Barcelona Femení?

Imma Cabecerán was 18. Her father took her to Camp Nou as a child, and she played street football with her younger brother. Women weren't allowed to play the game she loved.

Montal told her the club would help if she found enough players. A Revista Barcelonista editor suggested an ad, and it ran on 17 November, calling for women aged 18 to 26. The club later pointed out that it repeated what Joan Gamper did in 1899, when he advertised for teammates.

Horwedel says 17 women answered. The club's own pages disagree with each other. One lists 17 names and another says sixteen. The pioneers were nurses and shop workers. Carme Nieto used her vacation days to train, and several players gave false names so their families wouldn't spot them in the paper. Former Barça goalkeeper Antonio Ramallets coached them.

Why did the first Barça women's team wear white shirts?

The club offered help but not membership. The team was called Selecció Ciutat de Barcelona, which is a mouthful, and the name says it all. They wore a white shirt, blue shorts and Barça socks. They couldn't use the badge, the blue-and-garnet shirt or the club's name.

The opponent was UE Centelles. The episode gives a different name, but the club's own account says Centelles. The match was a curtain raiser at a charity festival to raise funds for children's hospitals, with the men's game against CSKA Sofia as the main event.

Then the women saw the pitch. It had been made smaller. The episode adds that the goals were shrunk and the match was cut to 60 minutes. Horwedel says the organizers assumed women needed a reduced version of football, and the players were furious. They knew they could play 90. Nieto still remembers what she assumed the organizers thought: "Those women won't last."

It finished 0-0. Selecció Ciutat de Barcelona won the shootout 4-3, with two goals from Cabecerán. Nieto later said that stopping no longer seemed acceptable. That's the episode's version, and I believe it.

History of FC Barcelona Femení from 1971 to 2002: the long wait

It wasn't a clean climb. The team became Peña Femenina Barcelonista in 1971. They went back to Camp Nou that year, including a 2-2 draw with Espanyol in front of 40,000. But big crowds didn't create a league. Women's football in Catalonia had faded by the late 1970s. By 1977 the team had to run a call for players in Revista Barcelonista again.

The first major trophy came on 26 June 1994. Club Femení Barcelona played the Copa de la Reina final against Oroquieta Villaverde, the favourites, who had finished eight points ahead of them. About 400 people came, mostly backing Oroquieta, in stifling heat. Barça played most of the match with ten players after a red card.

“They didn't begin with permission. They made themselves impossible to ignore.”
— Chris Horwedel, on Why We Love This Club

They won 2-1. In added time, goalkeeper Roser Serra, carrying a foot injury almost the whole game, stretched that foot to turn Mari Mar's low shot round for a corner. The corner came in while the Barcelona players were still on the floor hugging their keeper. The next morning they took the trophy to the home of their manager, Núria Llansà, who had missed the final through illness.

Official status came eight years later, on the same date. That's 32 years after the ad. Life didn't turn glamorous overnight. In the old Club Femení days, players put in money from their own pockets, and with training ending at 11pm some got home as late as 2am. The episode adds relegation in 2007 and a return to the top flight a year later. Defender Melanie Serrano remembers catching the last train home.

When did Barça Femení become professional?

In 2015, according to the episode, when the first team went fully professional. Horwedel says it sounds like paperwork. What it meant was daytime training, specialist coaches, medical care, nutrition and analysis. It also meant the players could stop acting like grateful visitors in their own club.

The wins had already started. The Copa de la Reina came back in 2011, and four straight league titles followed from 2012 to 2015.

The hard lesson came in Budapest in 2019. Lyon beat Barça 4-1 in the Champions League final. Lyon were four goals up inside 30 minutes, and Ada Hegerberg had a hat-trick by then. Horwedel describes the response as work, not panic: more demanding training, better conditioning, and individual physical plans. The club kept its passing game and built bodies able to play it under pressure. His line is that an identity without that preparation "becomes a theory."

How did Barça Femení win the Champions League?

It took two years. On 16 May 2021 in Gothenburg, Barça beat Chelsea 4-0. They were 4-0 up after 36 minutes. The episode says they scored after 33 seconds. It doesn't mention that the goal was an own goal, when Fran Kirby's attempted clearance looped in off Melanie Leupolz. Alexia Putellas then scored a penalty, Aitana Bonmatí scored a third and Caroline Graham Hansen scored the fourth in the 36th minute. The sides had swapped places since Budapest. It was almost too neat, and nobody saw it: the match was played behind closed doors.

Barça became the first Spanish side to win the title. Further wins followed, though never easily. The episode has them two goals down at half-time against Wolfsburg in 2023 and winning 3-2. They beat Lyon 2-0 in 2024 and lost 1-0 to Arsenal in 2025. In Oslo on 23 May 2026 they failed to put a shot on target in the first half, then won 4-0, with Ewa Pajor and Salma Paralluelo each scoring twice. That was their fourth final win in six years.

Individual honours followed too. According to the episode, Putellas won the Ballon d'Or in 2021 and 2022, and Bonmatí won the next three. That's five in a row for two Barcelona midfielders.

How did a women's match draw more than 91,000 to Camp Nou?

The women normally play at the Estadi Johan Cruyff, which seats 6,000. For the 2022 Champions League knockout games, they moved to Camp Nou to meet the demand for tickets.

On 30 March 2022, 91,553 people beat the old record of 90,185, set at the 1999 World Cup final. Then 91,648 turned up for the Wolfsburg semi-final, 23 days later.

Horwedel's point is the second crowd. One full house can be a curiosity. Two in three weeks is a habit. Patri Guijarro told reporters, "We're speechless, really."

In 1970, the pioneers were let into the stadium without the club's shirt. In 2022, the crowd turned up wearing the players' names. The episode is worth hearing for how Horwedel ties those two nights together.

They got the socks, by the way.